'Top priority accorded to social sector, SDGs'

The Punjab government is according top priority to social sector and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Secretary Planning & Development Department, Punjab, Iftikhar Ali Sahoo, said. While inaugurating SDGs prioritisation workshop jointly organised by P&D Punjab and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) here Monday, Sahoo said that solid steps have been taken to achieve the SDGs.
He said the Punjab Growth Strategy was anchored in the sustainable goals with special focus on health, education, job creation through skill development, poverty reduction and energy sector. According to him, Punjab was attaching high priority to the social sector and during the current financial year, there has been 32% increase in social sector allocations.
He said all the SDGs were important for the government; however, some goals were to be prioritised for early attainment for which the workshop had been organised. Dr Hassan Mohtashami, Representative UNFPA said on the occasion that Pakistan will have to control alarming rate of population growth failing which all the efforts for development will go waste.
During the workshop, the representatives of development organisations, CSOs, academia, private sector, local government and government departments gave their suggestions for development priorities in the Punjab province. Sources said the Punjab government believes that equitable economic growth can only be achieved by diverting maximum resources to social sector including education and health, production sector comprising agriculture, livestock etc.
In order to bring qualitative change in the lives of its citizens, the sources said the Punjab government has accorded top priority to social sector in the budget of 2016-17. For education sector, an allocation of Rs 312.8 billion has been made. For health sector, an amount of Rs 207.3 billion has been allocated. In addition, the government has also initiated a comprehensive project of clean drinking water with an allocation of Rs 30.0 billion for the next financial year.